Alternative to game quality indicator - Handicaps/Bonuses

No, my assumption is correct. Your assumption that the result of a single game is evidence of the long term failure of trueskill is what is flawed.

Your analogy about trueskill is also flawed because it can only make a relativistic distribution based on the data it has. If you have a distribution based on 5x5 maps, then it is accurate for gauging that. If you suddenly add 20x20 maps, then you have added an error factor for the rating. Since tmm eliminates the ability to select for slots and maps (but it keeps the ability to select for teammates), it is about as close as you can get to rating the quality of that individual as a teammate.

So: since there is no situation where trueskill needs to account for data of 1 2k player playing 20 100 rating players on a 5x5 map, it is irrelevant to the situation. All that matters is 2v2 capability on the curated pool of the matchmaker.

So can a 2k player beat 20 100 rated players on the maps in tmm? If he can't, then he isn't a 2k according to the construction of this trueskill environment. If he can, then he is. Luckily this is not a possibility in matchmaker so it isn't a consideration for the system.

@ftxcommando said in Alternative to game quality indicator - Handicaps/Bonuses:

No, my assumption is correct. Your assumption that the result of a single game is evidence of the long term failure of trueskill is what is flawed.

Your analogy about trueskill is also flawed because it can only make a relativistic distribution based on the data it has. If you have a distribution based on 5x5 maps, then it is accurate for gauging that. If you suddenly add 20x20 maps, then you have added an error factor for the rating. Since tmm eliminates the ability to select for slots and maps (but it keeps the ability to select for teammates), it is about as close as you can get to rating the quality of that individual as a teammate.

So: since there is no situation where trueskill needs to account for data of 1 2k player playing 20 100 rating players on a 5x5 map, it is irrelevant to the situation. All that matters is 2v2 capability on the curated pool of the matchmaker.

I disagree. I think truskill is quite good. My OP only questions the validity of the game quality indicator. The game quality indicator is NOT truskill. We shouldn't pretend that it has the same reliability. Remember, my OP suggests handicap based on truskill. Nobody here - not me, not you - is trying to say truskill doesnt work.

I thought the game quality indicator was literally the fed likelihood of a game result based on given mu and sigma?

@ftxcommando said in Alternative to game quality indicator - Handicaps/Bonuses:

I thought the game quality indicator was literally the fed likelihood of a game result based on given mu and sigma?

In the context of equal teams in FPS games, yes. However, truskill was never intended for use in RTS games or in game with unequal numbers of players in each team.

The truth is, the game quality indicator is nearly arbitrary. It basically just averages the truskill of each player. IT doesnt account for anything else, despite there being a lot more to account for in RTS games.

Can't the TrueSkill algorithm be made to work faster?

If there is a significant rating difference between team members, let it learn multiple times from the same game for the lower rated player.

Example 500 & 1500 vs 2 x 1000. 1500 player gets one normal rating adjustment. 500 player gets rating adjustment (1500/500=) 3 times in a row or multiplied 3 times. Now a 500 player who should be 800 rated gets there faster and less people post on the forums, otherwise his rating drops faster so next time they play 2x 900.

ya that's why trueskill has deviation to learn rating faster

@funkoff said in Alternative to game quality indicator - Handicaps/Bonuses:

In the context of equal teams in FPS games, yes. However, truskill was never intended for use in RTS games or in game with unequal numbers of players in each team.

Trueskills is a mathematical model of player skill. It does not matter in which genre. What can matter however, is how a certain game mode works, so yes it could have problems with how Trueskil expects player skill to add up in teams.

Your suggestion however, does nohing to fix that problem. I turns gameplan from a good player trying to carry a bad team to a good player trying to exploit the bonuses of his team mate in the best way possible.
It makes the entire game unpredictable and inconsistent (you now longer know much damage ANYTHING does to each other) and in a way unlearnable, or rather increases the skill gap massively because you now need to learn how every units properties scale with malus/bonus level.
And it adds an entire dimension of balance maintenance work. Not gonna happen.

So, here are the two solutions to the problem:

• Change Trueskill to model how bad players can be a net negative for the team by preventing a better player from gaining more mex spots. Not gonna happen.
• Change the game so that a dying low rated player no longer gives any additional mex spots to the team. For example by removing core mex spots on death. However, that changes a whole bunch of other dynamics related to player deaths and share conditions.

The biggest problem with putting a "thumb on the scale" to benefit one player over another is that it interferes with both players' natural development of an understanding of eco balance. The stronger player is going to have to fight against his own brain to make sense of a sluggish balance and the weaker player is going to be denied the opportunity to develop that aspect of their game sense. Which means neither player is going to get better. It will be not only a frustrating experience but also a pointless one.

It would make more sense to have a handicap in the form of one player starting with prebuilt structures. From there, the game would be completely normal: every unit and building would behave exactly as normal.

It's true that the stronger player could catch up to the weaker player and then the game would basically be over--but that just means the weaker player needs to learn how to play from an advantage. This wouldn't be for TMM of course, it would just be for custom matchups. It wouldn't just be about balancing 1v1s or 2v2s. You could balance a 2v1 this way, or you could balance a 6v6 if the weakest players got to start with an extra factory and some pgens. You would just have to expect them to behave as gentlemen and not give their factories to a higher-rated teammate.

You might be able to modify the "prebuilt bases" code to look at player ratings in order to decide how much each person gets of the prebuilt stuff. So if you this SIM mod running (let's call it "Balanced Bases") and prebuilt buildings are off, nothing happens. But if prebuilt buildings are on, the stronger players get less and the weaker players get more.

Any idea that changes the probabilities of a games outcome significantly based on player rating, be it by unit balance, or by adding prebuilt structures, kills Trueskill ability to work correctly.

Edit:
Let me clearer on that:

The rating of a player must never influence the game rules, because otherwise you break the maths and the world explodes.

And this is probably true for most rating systems.

@humanpotatoe said in Alternative to game quality indicator - Handicaps/Bonuses:

trueskill is useless for anything other than 1v1, and even there whoever controls the map pool and decides what the reclaim values are on each map effect that rating. whoever controls it now loves rocks and spam heavy gameplay

You are trolling right? Please leave this discussion if you have nothing of value to add.

On a COMPLETELY related note, why is there no downvote option on the forums?

So that we can reinforce positive mindset and properly show how caring of community we are.

i love this idea it has my vote to buff lower rank players with unimaginable bonus's

funkoff said in Alternative to game quality indicator - Handicaps/Bonuses:

For example in 2v2 TMM, a 500 and a 1500 will generally lose against two 1000s significantly more often than the other way around

I can't particularly remember this as being the case..

..now that the 500 on that team is a 2k rated player on an alt account to abuse such an impossibly flawed system, it would appear even less so.

If you're gonna make some list of pros/cons can you at least list all the cons instead of trying to make it appear as if it has more positives than negatives?

I think there is a difference of the game quality that is shown in the game wich is defined by the trueskill specification and therefore hardcoded in a sense and an arbitrary gamequality that the server ususes to match people. @BlackYps did a post about how he *will calculate it in a future update in another thread. Afaik it mostly modfies the game quality for people with few games. Also it takes rating differences of a matchup into account. With the current one it doesn't feel like I get good matches which were regularly <10% ingame game quality.
On topic: I am against the Idea of buffing peoples eco according to their skill. Punished being good, in a system that already tries to create balanced matchups. And the better player will just be in the passager seat and at the mercy of his teammate playing bad or horrible. Which is a huge pain to watch.
If you are matched with weaker teammates just give them basic instructions. If you aren't a douche they will actually follow them and it will increase their effective rating by roughly 300 points in the match.
Don't tell them what they did wrong during the game. It doesn't help at all. Don't try to play the game for them. Just basic stuff like which expansion belongs to who, where to send acu. If you want to spam or win the long tech game. Tell them when to push or retreat (in general). When an airfight is taking place.
This is how I won a lot of games with lower rated teammates in tmm.

(Edit *)

Just for clarification: The system in that thread is not live yet. Currently the 2v2 matchmaker uses a different system. I am working on a replacement that allows us to have bigger team sizes.

This would be better as a MOD which friends can use to help balance informal gameplay.